Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Jonas Salk, Clara Barton: these are hallowed names of people who live in our historical imagination.

Yet none of them held elected office.

None of them ran corporations or made millions of dollars.

Although our society admires celebrity and material reward, those whom we most revere give of themselves and make a difference for others.

The problem is that these iconic figures have become so lionized that it is impossible to aspire to be like them.  They seem to be of another world, one of superheroes and saints.

Yet the transformations they achieved- in the world and in themselves- are within our reach.

I have seen firsthand that ordinary people are capable of superhero-like accomplishments.

I believe that you can, in the words of Ghandi,

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

We live in a world of self-help, but the most profound and fundamental way to help ourselves lies in our ability to reach out and help others – to extend beyond our own needs to support those around us.

Our world is different as a result of countless service leaders.

There is a profound truth in Martin Luther King Jr.’s familiar pronouncement that

“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.”

Service is the great equalizer.

Millions of acts of courage and imagination have gone into shaping a world in which democracy and self-governance is increasingly the norm, where science and medicine have the power to cure ills and ensure longevity, where technology unites us in a global web of communication and learning that promises an even faster pace of change and possibility for progress.

We stand at a time of enormous potential, but also of danger – environmental hazards, nuclear proliferation, global poverty and terrorism are all very real threats to our wold and the promise of progress.  But perhaps the biggest obstacle of all is apathy.

We need to participate – within our communities and in our democracy.

Individual acts of daring and creativity will ultimately determine the fate of nations and our increasingly global society.  And those acts will change us in return.

We often think that certain issues or problems are beyond our capacity to solve. But in the words of the Hopi Indian elders,

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

May we all discover that we too have the power to change the world and to change ourselves in the process.

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